


What's in a Name?

by adoritotree (AlgaLenn)



Series: Decypher - A Superhero AU [2]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mob, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Backstory, Bill's shitty childhood, Gen, Human Bill Cipher, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mob Boss Thad, Orphan Bill Cipher, mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-04
Updated: 2019-01-04
Packaged: 2019-10-03 22:46:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17292836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlgaLenn/pseuds/adoritotree
Summary: How Bill finally chose a name for himself and decided to become a supervillain.





	What's in a Name?

**Author's Note:**

> So I wanted to finally write Bill's and Dipper's first meeting, but I felt like first I needed to give more information about Bill and how he got to be where he is. I hope I can write that next piece soon, not that's out of the way... But I'm not making any promises.
> 
> No beta this time, there might be mistakes.
> 
> For those waiting for a Fixing Bill Cipher update, I was planning to, but editing the RP takes a lot of clicking and my right hand and the mouse aren't quite getting along at the moment (damn tendinitis). I'm not even going to make excuses for Reality is an Illusion, it's come to a point where I'll only work on it if I ever feel like it again, unfortunately,:/ sorry about that.

Bill Cipher was many things. He was handsome, smart and charismatic, but he could also be an asshole, a con man and someone anyone in their right mind could fear. But above all that, Bill Cipher was a mystery, sometimes even to his own family -which wasn’t exactly hard to accomplish when his family only consisted of one living relative.

Nobody knew Bill’s full name, or at least, nobody knew the last name he had chosen for himself: Cipher. Some people knew him as Bill C or just Bill, but  _ most _ people usually referred to him as Mr. Strange’s brother and that bothered Bill to no end.

Bill was 5 years younger than Thad. He had been born into a seemingly normal household that was actually an extremely broken and unsafe environment for kids or anyone for that matter.

His father had abandoned his mother halfway through the pregnancy and because his mother refused to get close to any hospital, a five-year-old Thaddeus Strange had to take part in delivering baby William into the world. The brothers never talked about that. The brothers rarely talked about anything back when they were kids.

Life was hard for the two brothers and when Bill looked back to those years he found it hard to believe that they had survived to become the men that they were in the present. Of course, the fact that his mother had died under ‘mysterious circumstances’ and they had been taken away from said broken home, probably improved their survival expectations, but everyone knew growing up in the system, while it was an improvement, it was certainly not pleasant.

Bill spent most of his life jumping from foster home to foster home, sometimes going through as many as 5 in a single year. It was nobody’s fault, or so people would like to say. Sometimes there were too many kids and he was just… he was the most problematic one, so they got rid of him. Some other times there was a freak accident and well… insane or dead people couldn’t take care of a child, so he would be transferred again. The good thing was that nobody seemed to notice that freaky accidents tended to follow Bill around.

Bill wasn’t a bad person, he only harmed those that hurt him. His mother had hurt him and one day he had snapped and with a wave of his hand her neck had snapped as well. He was ten when that happened; when he discovered he was special. Thad had been out with friends so he had never found out.

Controlling his powers hadn’t been easy at first, but he had learned with time and it had become quite useful. They had made him feel invincible. He didn’t need anyone to take care of him, he could do that just fine… But the fact that Thad hadn’t gotten him out of the system when he turned 18 still hurt him a lot and his relationship with his brother had never recovered from that, not even after he did take him in years later and offered him a job and a place to stay.

Thad Strange… By the time he and Bill got in touch again, he had been starting to gain traction in Portland, making deals with people. Illegal deals. He was an ambitious man and he was as charismatic  -if not more- as his brother, so going up the ranks of the underground business world hadn’t been difficult for him. With Bill’s help, in less than a year he was the new mob boss in the city.  _ Everyone  _ feared the brothers… Or well, everyone feared  _ Thad,  _ not many knew of Bill’s existence, only those with whom the blond had had to get up close and personal.

This bothered Bill to no end, but he refused to acknowledge how much it did until one day Thad confronted him about it.

“If you really don’t want to be living under my shadow then maybe try to make a name for yourself? It’s not like I’ve been forcing you to hide who you are, that’s always been your choice,” the older man had pointed out while they were having dinner at his mansion.

Bill hated to admit it, but Thad had been right about that, it was just… He didn’t think he could make a name for himself when he didn’t know his real name to begin with. Thad was lucky… His father hadn’t ghosted his mom, he had just died at an early age, Thad had his last name and he had made it his own. Bill though? Bill hadn’t even been registered until social services had taken him and Thad away from that house. He had his mother’s last name because of that, but he  _ loathed  _ that name, he didn’t  _ want  _ it.

Maybe it was the time to search for a new one. Maybe he could find his dad and see if that one worked.

Thad had encouraged him to do that and once again he and Bill got separated as the later spent a year looking for his father.

It didn’t go that well. Bill never found him and he would have continued looking for him… If Thad hadn’t begged him to go back to Portland to help him with a spy problem he was having.

Thad had been suspicious that someone was trying to backstab him for a while now and had been keeping a close eye on all of his associates because of that, but he couldn’t confront anyone without proof, knowing it would ruin his reputation… And he had that proof, but it was in code. Coded messages he had found while searching the email accounts of those he worked with. 

Bill had always had a thing for codes. There was excitement in the challenge to figure out what someone was keeping from you and when you could read most people’s minds that challenge usually went away… But code brought it back or him. So, of course, Thad had asked him to go back to help him.

It had taken a couple of days, but Bill had cracked the code, Thad had gotten the person that the code mentioned… And while Bill was really getting tired of following Thad’s orders, he got into the dark room when his brother asked him and tortured the man for a while, until he got him to think about his other backstabbing associates. This time though, he decided to give Thad’s suggestion a try and, while he still didn’t have a last name, he made it clear to the man that he was  _ Bill  _ and that he shouldn’t forget that.

It made Bill feel great! Like he would finally get some recognition for all his hard work! It would be his turn in the spotlight! 

But then he had let Thad known the information he had gathered and his brother had loaded his gun, gone into the room and shoot the guy.

“You’ve got to be kidding me! He was my chance! What happened to you letting me make a name for myself!” Bill had yelled at Thad, but the other had looked as calm as ever. It was infuriating.

“I’d make sure to give you credit tomorrow at the party, once I reveal what you and I discovered, don’t worry, Bill,” he had reassured him and Bill had believed him.

But of course, Bill could never catch a break and sure! Thad had credited him! Or, to be more accurate, he had credited  _ his little brother.  _ After that Bill left the party, grabbed most of his stuff, put them in his car… and got out of the mansion. He couldn’t continue to live under his brother’s shadow, if he wanted credit, if he wanted the world to know who they should really fear, then he would have to do it on his own like he had done most things in the past.

That night, the first Cypher code appeared in the city, graffitied on the stairs of City Hall. It was simple, most people would be able to solve it, but it worked to make a first impression.

It said: I’m Cypher, don’t forget my name, because I’ll know if you do.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think in the comments! Getting feedback always makes my day.


End file.
